


Not A Decision, But A Choice

by mayhem (zidle)



Series: Forged in Ice, Raised with Wolves [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Communication, F/M, Forced Marriage, Insecure Sandor, no red wedding, no war of the five kings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 03:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20557571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zidle/pseuds/mayhem
Summary: “I may not have chosen this marriage, but I will choose what kind of union it will be."





	Not A Decision, But A Choice

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read Try Harder To Punish Me, you might want to. It's not 100% necessary, but you might be a little lost if not.

Sansa had thought the day of her wedding was going quite well considering the circumstances of the groom being a practical stranger. She was given away to Sandor by the King, who sneered at her like he had come up with the greatest punishment for a girl like her, and the two of them exchanged cloaks and said their words without pause. They ate and drank together during the small feast but barely spoke to each other. She had hoped he would ask her to dance with him, but one look at her new lord husband guzzling wine had quashed that hope.

As the feast went on, it seemed Sandor became more withdrawn, his face set in a permanent scowl. Any attempts to draw him into conversation were met with growls or silence, so she stopped trying.

Once he had drained his goblet for at least the fourth time, Sansa placed a hand on his arm to get his attention before he could signal a serving girl for a refill.

“Mayhaps we should retire to our chambers, my lord. It is getting quite late.”

He looked as though he was considering ignoring her and staying for more wine, but Sandor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, which came out as a heavy sigh.

“Aye, let’s go then.”

Sandor stood and walked away from the table before she could take his arm to be escorted out of the dining hall. Sansa followed behind him and had to rush to keep up with his long strides. Only their footsteps made sounds in the corridors, and she wondered if she had done anything to cause this anger in her husband.

They had spent little time together before the wedding, but the few times they spoke, he was not exactly kind or courteous, but at least pleasant and good-tempered. They conversed a bit about his keep in the Westerlands, but they mostly spoke about her, or she spoke about herself and he listened. She talked about the North and her family and her interests, and he nodded and grunted to show he was paying attention, even asking a few questions here and there.

But none of their interactions had been like this, and she was unsure what to make of it.

He led her to a nondescript door and paused before pushing it open. There was a fire going inside, illuminating the room so she could see the large bed that took up most of the space. She was glad for its size because of the bulk of her husband. Sandor went straight to a small table that held a pitcher of water and a flagon of wine, and he chose the latter, drinking a gulp straight from the jug.

Sansa closed the door behind her and approached him carefully, unsure of how much the wine had dulled his senses and not wanting to startle him.

“Sandor?” He pulled the flagon away from his face and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand.

“What?” He half-croaked, half-barked.

“Is something wrong?”

He laughed loudly and set the wine on the table so hard some sloshed over the rim and onto the polished wood.

“Listen to the little bird! ‘Is something wrong?’ You’re bloody right something’s wrong!”

Sansa put her hand on his upper arm, attempting to convey her seriousness by catching his eyes with her own. “If it’s something I did, I’m truly sorry, my lord.”

“Just stop it!” Sandor yelled, and she wondered if anybody would be roaming the halls to hear him.

She pulled her hand back at the vitriol in his voice, not wanting to cause any more outbursts. “Stop what, my lord?”

“Stop acting like you’re happy about this marriage. Stop pretending to be the perfect fucking lady, just saying and doing what she thinks she’s supposed to without a bloody thought to what she actually wants.”

“And you are to tell me that I am pretending or acting? Because you know my wants so well?”

“I know that no highborn girl dreams of a marriage to a gods damned monster.”

“No, most highborn girls dream of gallant knights or handsome princes or golden kings, but I have known a handsome prince who turned into a golden king, and I would rather your so-called monster than him any day.”

“You think yourself brave, but you’re terrified this beast will hurt you, will take you and fuck you bloody until you scream or sing or die. That’s what my brother did, you know? He fucked his wives until they died.”

“You do not frighten me. You will not frighten me. And you will not hurt me. You are not him,” she told him with steel in her voice, in her eyes and in her spine. She was made of armor when she faced off her giant of a husband. He was large and strong and a warrior, but she had the strength of a Northern lady, forged in ice and raised with wolves.

“You might not think you’ll feel fear, that I won’t hurt you, but when this horror is above you and I push into your tight cunt and take your maidenhead, you’ll feel pain and you’ll feel disgust, girl,” he growled at her.

Sansa wanted to growl back at him, wanted to scream, but she would not.

“This is the decision I have made, and you will not take it from me, my lord.”

“Your decision?” He laughed cruelly. “This was the King’s decision, not yours. No amount of pretending you chose this will make it true.”

“I may not have chosen this marriage, but I will choose what kind of union it will be. I will choose not to be angry at the match. I will choose not to stew in hatred of my new lord husband. And I will choose to embrace my new home when we get there.”

Sandor stood several feet from her where he had paused in the middle of angry pacing, and she walked slowly closer to him.

“Acting as if this marriage is not real will not make it go away. We do not know each other well yet, but I would rather be partners in this union rather than coexist in a place of resentment or indifference. ‘From this day until my last day.’ We spoke the words, and I would not have them be false. I would have us choose to be happy.”

Her voice stayed soft, as if speaking to an easily spooked animal. Sansa was within touching distance of Sandor now, and though she wasn’t sure of what his reaction would be, she reached out to place both hands on his chest. The black doublet he had worn for the wedding was soft under her fingers as she brushed them back and forth, her eyes trained on their movement. She wasn’t sure how long she did this, but she was brought out of her near trance when Sandor’s hands came up to loosely grasp her forearms.

“Being happy is not something I’m very familiar with,” his voice was gravelly and rough, but softer than it had been when it was full of anger and resentment.

Sansa tilted her face up so she could see the expression on his own. The turmoil within him was evident in his grey eyes and the downturn of his mouth, but she answered him with a soft smile.

“Then we will change that.”

With his head turned down to her, Sansa could almost meet his lips with hers, but there was still space left between them that she couldn’t close even stretched on her toes. It was up to him to breach the distance. Sandor stared into her eyes for so long she thought she would begin to wobble on her toes, but she steadied herself on his chest and did not pull away as the thoughts raced through his mind.

She couldn’t know what he was thinking, but his expression still hadn’t cleared when he lowered his face to press his lips against hers. His lips were softer than she expected them to be, and she had never kissed someone with a beard before, so she was unused to the coarse hair rubbing against her cheeks and chin. It was not unpleasant. It felt different physically than any of her few previous kisses, but something was different inside her as well. The knowledge that this man kissing her was not her family’s ward or the son of a visiting lord or a nasty prince, but was her husband made her insides soar. She was the little bird he had named her.

Sansa had not remembered that he had a hold on her forearms until he released his grip to brush his hands up along her bare upper arms. His hands were rough from working and fighting, but it was more of a thrill than a discomfort to have them rubbing against her soft skin. When he moved his hands around her shoulders to hold her back, his fingers stretching to span almost its entirety, Sansa dragged her own up from his chest to press against the skin on either side of his neck. Her thumbs ran along the thick hair on the underside of his jaw and Sandor’s arms flexed to hold her tighter.

When she pulled back to breathe, she didn’t go far, her nose brushing against his as she looked for a reaction in his eyes. She had only known this man for three days, but Sansa had never seen such tenderness or vulnerability in him. He was a battle-toughened warrior—he could have even been the holy Warrior that the Southron knights prayed to—who had no use for gentleness or open affection. But this man she was looking at now, he held warmth in his eyes and wonder in the set of his mouth.

She knew that warmth was echoed on her own face.

Their arms still held each other, his hands like warm stone on her back and hers soft on his neck, and neither moved to separate them any further than they were. Sansa ran her left hand from his neck to his jaw, up to his ruined cheek, feeling the ropey flesh with her fingertips. She brushed them over every inch of his healed over flesh and watched how his eyes fell shut as she did. Some of his long hair had fallen forward to create a sort of curtain around his face, blocking it from everything else in the room other than her, and she pushed the strands back to see that entire side of him. Most of it fell back where it was when she released it, without a full ear on that side to hold the strands back. She rested the full span of her small hand over his skin.

“Does it hurt?” She whispered into the quiet of their chambers.

Sandor’s eyes reopened slowly as if waking up from a dream, and he gave a small shake of the head and croaked out, “Not anymore.”

A smile stretched her face and Sansa used her grip on his cheek and neck to pull him just a little bit closer so she could brush a kiss against his scars. 

“Good,” she murmured with her lips still against his skin.

When she pulled back, she dropped to her regular height, her feet protesting at being arched for so long, but she stayed within his grasp as Sandor continued to stare at her.

“What do you want from me?” He begged in a low voice, hands flexing on her back, fingers digging in slightly.

Her hands moved back down to rest on his chest, one over his heavily beating heart.

“A life. A future. Happiness.”

Sansa didn’t say love, but she thought that might come one day too. It might sneak up on them years from now when they already have their first babe, or maybe their second, and have lived together and shared secrets and desires and fought through arguments and disagreements. Or it might come sooner than they are expecting, the knowledge that they love each other more than they were ever meant to.

Sandor grunted and she thought he might laugh, hopefully in mirth rather than mocking, but he held back the noise. There would be a day soon, she promised herself, that she would teach him that it is okay to laugh in delight.

“We can try for those things.”

“That is all I ask.”

Her husband’s expression was open and she thought there would be no better time to ask him the same.

“And what do you want from me?”

But with the few things she did know about him, she probably should have anticipated the answer.

“Right now?”

Sandor’s hands moved down from her back to cup her behind and pull her body into his. As they pressed together from chest to thigh, she felt his hardness against her belly and fought a blush that she knew would come anyway. She was a married woman now, she would have to learn to stop blushing so much, especially with a husband like hers, full of crass and vulgar tendencies.

She smiled with heat in her cheeks, “Then take me to bed, husband.”

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, look at me writing a sequel to something!!! And I've got other parts in the works!!!
> 
> I want to thank everyone who had awesome and kind and amazing things to say about Try Harder To Punish Me. It's because of y'all that I was able to crank this out so quick (the SanSan muse loves comments).
> 
> You can find me on Twitter at @FANFICED and check out my fanfiction blog at FANFICED.com!!! Come pitch me a post you want to write for the site (I love my contributors!!!!)


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